Word: pakistanis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Mohammed Zia ul-Haq spent his last hours on a dusty patch of desert in remote Bahawalpur, 330 miles south of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. Accompanied by U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel, the Pakistani President watched field tests of the American-made M-1 Abrams tank, which he was interested in buying for his country's army. After spending the day observing the high-tech vehicle climb around the dunes, Zia, Raphel and a large entourage boarded a U.S.-built C-130 transport to fly back to the military airport at Rawalpindi, near Islamabad...
...huge turboprop bounced twice after hitting the sandy plain, then came down a third and final time, exploding on impact. All 30 people aboard were killed, including Zia, 64; Raphel, 45; Brigadier General Herbert Wassom, 49, the chief of the U.S. military mission in Pakistan; and five top Pakistani generals. "It was so hot we could not get close," said a distressed villager who rushed to the scene. "We could not help them...
...crash, which officials immediately labeled suspicious, came at a crucial time for Pakistan and the entire region in which Zia had made himself a major diplomatic player. During his eleven years in power, longer than any other Pakistani head of state, Zia brooked little opposition at home and failed to groom a successor. Last May he summarily dismissed his handpicked civilian government and reestablished one-man rule, thus ensuring a legacy of political disarray. Said Benazir Bhutto, whose Pakistan People's Party has led recent agitation to restore civilian rule: "I do not regret the death...
Even before teams of U.S. and Pakistani investigators had begun sorting through the wreckage of the plane, many were convinced that its passengers were victims of terrorism. Officials speculated that Zia's plane was either struck by a surface-to-air missile or, more likely, blown up by a bomb planted aboard and detonated by remote control from the ground. Said Riaz Mohammed Khan, a spokesman for the Pakistan government: "Personally, I am 100% sure -- not 99%, 100% -- that it was sabotage...
...trained Afghan secret police, which in the past several years has been blamed for hundreds of terrorist bombings in Pakistan. Over the past few months, Kabul and Moscow have issued strident warnings to Islamabad to stop allowing arms for the Afghan rebels, or mujahedin, to be smuggled across the Pakistani border into Afghanistan. Just days before Zia's death, the Kremlin issued a statement saying the Pakistani actions could not "be further tolerated." But many Western diplomats doubt that Moscow would go so far as assassinating Zia, and it is assumed that the Khad would not have acted without Soviet...